An act by which a thing is separated from common and profane to sacred use; or a person or thing is dedicated to the service and worship of God by prayers, rites, and ceremonies, as the consecration of a bishop, a church, a fixed altar and altar-stone, a chalice and paten. As distinct from blessing, the ceremony is more elaborate, it can never be repeated, more numerous graces are attached to it, it elevates persons or things to a permanent state, and their profanation constitutes the sin of sacrilege.

The term Consecration, without any qualification, means the most solemn part of the Mass; the priest, imitating Our Lord at the Last Supper, changes first the bread and then the wine into His Body and Blood, the appearances of bread and wine which still remain thus becoming sacred, Sacred Species, as they are called, because thef veil the Real Presence.